Wildlife

US, 2018, 105mins, Cert.12A

Film description

Fourteen-year-old Joe (Ed Oxenbould) is the only child of Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) and Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) – a housewife and a golf pro – in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job – and his sense of purpose – he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

Carey Mulligan is outstanding as the mother struggling to keep her head above water, while Ed Oxenbould shines as the teenage son who witnesses her gradual unravelling. Co-written by Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano’s directorial debut is an elegant and absorbing drama based on Richard Ford’s novel of the same name.